Throughout my time studying in my college English class, I have learned a variety of new skills

that have greatly improved my writing ability. In order for us to learn and practice what we learned the
professor assigned two different major assignments that tested how much we improved. The
assignments were a synthesis from a book that was assigned to us and a literature review of a topic of
the group’s choice. Each assignment refined my competence to write to the point where I can create
organized, well thought out, and detailed papers.

In my college English class, the first major assignment was a synthesis for Naming What We
Know: Threshold Concepts for Writing Studies that was done by myself. Synthesis is the main idea that is
supported by multiple articles. The requirements for the assignment were APA formatted citations, five
sources cited, and two pages long. The assignment was pretty difficult because I have never done a
synthesis before. To get the five sources I read all the articles needed for the assignment at least 3 times
each so I would know how to put them together in the synthesis. In the beginning, figuring out how to
do APA citations was confusing until I learned how to import them from NoodleTools so that the
citations were already in APA format. Getting the paper to two pages long was the easiest part of the
assignment because of my previous preparations of making a rough outline and rereading the articles I
was using in my synthesis.

For me, the most useful experience was figuring out how all of the articles tie in together for my
main synthesis. At the time, I didn’t know how to come up with any topics that fit in with the articles but
now I know that I need to create summaries of the articles that I am using to figure out what they have
in common before I decide on what my synthesis is going to be about. Later, I noticed that when I asked
questions about the article before and while reading it that I was able to come up main topics that the
article was talking about easier.

Having analyzed the methods and strategies I used to create my synthesis I now know that the
next time I create a synthesis I must ask questions about the articles that I am using like what the main
point is, what evidence is supporting it, and how does it relate to similar topics. Most importantly, I have
learned that when creating a synthesis, I need to have a strong main idea that can be supported by all of
my sources. This means that every time I make another synthesis, I will read and summarize all the
sources that are being used to make sure that they all support the main idea.

The second major grade for my English class was a literature review. A literature review is the
research and discussion of a topic that uses multiple sources to create a synthesis. Unlike the synthesis
for Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts for Writing Studies, this was a group project. At the
beginning of the project, my group had to create a research matrix where we would create a table with
the articles we were going to use, the main ideas of the articles, and how they relate to our synthesis. A
total of 12 sources were needed for the project that had to be cited using APA format. To get all of the
requirements for the synthesis each group member only had to add two articles to the research matrix.
To find the articles I used databases that the university supplies us with. In the paper, we split it into
different categories of how AI is in daily life to make it simpler to write about.

The most important skill I learned was how to use a database to find articles that are about a
topic that I want to research. Now I can navigate through complex databases to find relevant articles.
Later, I realized that I need multiple topics to talk about that support the main idea of the literature
review because if there aren't enough then the main idea becomes weak and unsupported. In order to
have a supported literature review I learned how to use evidence from multiple sources to support the
main idea.

Now that I have learned how to use databases, I now realize that in order to find articles that
relate to my topic I need to set filters and search for keywords in the database. Furthermore, I have
learned that to improve the quality of my research I need to use databases that have peer-reviewed
articles that are trusted. Now when I need to find sources for a topic that I am researching I am going to
go to databases that are well-trusted and have peer-reviewed articles. In order to find articles that
relate to my topic quicker I will refine my searches by searching for keywords and placing filters on the
articles like when it was published and how many times it was cited.